Nuremberg (2025)

The story of the Nuremberg trials following WWII has been told many times in film, TV series and books but this film focusses very squarely on the role played by the American Army psychiatrist whisked in to evaluate and try to get under the skin of the accused Nazi leaders. Particularly though his growing obsession with understanding how human beings could have taken part in such acts of evil, via a bond with Hermann Göring, with which those around him grow increasingly concerned.

The story of the Nuremberg trials following WWII has been told many times in film, TV series and books but this film focusses very squarely on the role played by the American Army psychiatrist whisked in to evaluate and try to get under the skin of the accused Nazi leaders. Particularly though his growing obsession with understanding how human beings could have taken part in such acts of evil, via a bond with Hermann Göring, with which those around him grow increasingly concerned.

Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody) knocks it out of the park as he plays said psychiatrist Douglas Kelley, supported very impressively by Russell Crowe (Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind) as Göring. The allies seek to bring justice to the German high command for the atrocities of the Holocaust, trying hard to secure admissions of guilt and responsibility for the laws passed and orders given to those below them.

Much of the first three-quarters of the 2 hour 28 minute film are spent alongside Kelley and Göring as we see how the battle of wits develops between them, their relationship grows closer and the psychiatrist starts to warm to the man and his family, who are staying nearby and with whom he regularly visits during the process. Director/producer/writer (though it is based on Jack El-Hai's book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist) James Vanderbilt (Truth, The Amazing Spider-Man) keeps things tight as we get up close and personal with the two leads heading towards the gripping courtroom drama at the end.

When we do get there, Michael Shannon (The Shape of Water, Knives Out) is similarly terrific as chief prosecutor Justice Robert H. Jackson, supported by, in the end, another great performance by Richard E. Grant (Withnail and I, Gosford Park) as fixer Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe. I'm no historian, so not sure how much of the nitty-gritty behind closed doors is true or accurate but it's certainly been made here into a gripping and harrowing tale. There's time spent in the courtroom where film footage of what the allies found in the concentration camps was screened for all to see, which I assume is actual images from the time and not generated by Hollywood.

Apparently, laying aside not really having evidence of what went on behind closed doors, the film is pretty factual which, if you took away the psychological battle between the two leads, would make it less of a drama and more shocking/upsetting. What makes it powerful, in a different sense though, is getting close to Göring (and his huge ego), pompously believing that he, his country and their leadership had done was right and proper to give the German people back what was theirs. It brings chills watching Crowe doing this very convincingly.

It's beautifully shot depicting the time and places involved and highlights also the difficult dilemma for the Americans, having to conduct the trials in Germany, where German laws had been implemented, even if by the Nazi party, rather than in America - which they had to realise would be inappropriate given that none of WWII actually happened there. War crimes trials had never been conducted like this before and these events were forming the way forward from a near blank sheet of paper, towards the likes of The Hague now in-situ.

So yes, it's all a little of a history lesson, but the drama is certainly lifted by the drama of the struggle between these two men. We get some captions at the end to tell us what happened during the following years to the main people involved, which, again, seem factual. All very sad - entertainment at a stretch, but more an opportunity for reflection of the events of the last century. Quite brilliantly made and highly recommended.

Pluribus (2025) - A Masterclass in Surrealist Tension

With the final episode recently dropping on Apple TV, the verdict on Pluribus is finally in: the hype is real. If you’ve been following the buzz - including the glowing praise from voices like our Allan Gildea on the Projector Room Podcast - you might be wondering if this high-concept drama actually delivers. After finishing the finale last night, I can confidently say that it doesn’t just deliver; it haunts.

At its core, Pluribus poses a premise that feels both absurd and deeply existential: What if the world’s most miserable person was tasked with saving humanity from total happiness? The series serves as a long-awaited reunion between Vince Gilligan and Rhea Seehorn, whose chemistry in Better Call Saul redefined television excellence. Here, they take that pedigree into even weirder territory. The world has been quietly conquered by an alien force, but there are no laser beams or scorched cities. Instead, the invaders have turned almost every human on Earth into a peaceful, accommodating, and perpetually happy-hippie! There are only thirteen outliers left - the 'unconverted' - and Seehorn’s character, Carol, is the most aggressively active of the bunch. While the rest of the world has joined a collective "We," Carol remains stubbornly, wonderfully individualistic.

If you are looking for a high-octane thriller, you might need to adjust your expectations. This is Gilligan in his most meditative form. There are stretches that echo the famous "Fly" episode of Breaking Bad - deliberate, slow-burn sequences that prioritise atmosphere and character internalities over plot progression. However, for those who appreciate the craft, this pacing is essential. It builds a sense of unease that a faster show would miss. The writing is incredibly smart, using the 'slow' moments to let the mind-bending nature of the premise truly sink in.

The horror of Pluribus isn't in violence, but in the Sword of Damocles hanging over the thirteen outliers. The "We" are not villains in the traditional sense; they are passive and eager to please, doing anything the outliers ask to keep them comfortable. Yet, behind this smiling facade, they are working relentlessly to "fix" the glitch that allowed these thirteen to slip through the net. The tension of being hunted by kindness is a stroke of narrative genius.

Visually, the show is a triumph. It is beautifully produced, with gorgeous, saturated visuals that mirror the eerie 'perfection' of this new world. You can see Gilligan’s meticulous stamp on every frame. But beyond the sci-fi hook, there is a sad love story buried in the static - a thread I won't spoil, but one that provides the show's emotional anchor.

Pluribus is a rare breed of television: a smart, surreal drama that respects the viewer’s intelligence. It is a fabulous achievement that demands a second viewing to catch all the nuances. If you haven't started it yet, consider this your highest possible recommendation.

Carry-On (2024) - A Guest Review by Chad Dixon

Carry-On is an excellent airport-based thriller that's available to watch on Netflix. Taron Egerton plays a brilliant lead as stuck-in-a-rut LAX junior security team member, Ethan Kopek, who after just finding out that his girlfriend, Nora Parisi (Sofia Carson), who also works at the airport as a Customer Service Manager, is pregnant, decides he's finally going to ask for that promotion from his hard-nosed boss, Phil Sarkowski (Dean Joseph Norris). However, soon after he starts his shift at one of the carry-on baggage check X-Ray machine posts, his day takes a frightening turn.

A random passenger in the queue says she's found a single earbud and just as he is about to place in the nearby lost property drawer, his mobile starts receiving texts from an unknown number. It starts by telling him to place the bud in his ear or his girlfriend with be in danger. He complies and then a calm male voice starts giving him verbal instructions. He is to allow a specific black wheely case with a red ribbon through the system without further scrutiny and that passenger to freely clear through his check point. "What the hell is in that case?"

Now, the main kicker here is that the voice over the earbuds comes from Jason Bateman, who from my memory, rarely plays a baddie, but does it well here as the no-name antagonist. He's convincingly chilling when giving Kopek multiple warnings for unsuccessfully trying to notify his team as to what's going on. An accomplice in a conveniently positioned van in the airport carpark opposite the terminal building is his 'eyes' as they've hacked into the airport's CCTV. They also seem to know what is going on at L.A. Police H.Q. quite easily too, so seem to have all bases covered.

The run time of 2 hours flies by as the tension cranks up deliciously. Seemingly completely trapped in this impossible situation, Kopek has to draw upon every ounce of his wit to try and get out of it, as well as saving his girlfriend. There's a sterlingly good supporting performance from Danielle Deadwyler as L.A. Detective Elena Cole, slowly piecing together what's going down from random incidents cropping up over the city, but mostly the supporting cast were actors I'd not seen before. No doubt with this tense thriller set on Christmas Eve there will definitely be some serious Die Hard comparisons, but I felt that it stands out well enough and is a gripping watch!

The Great Flood (2025)

This is on Netflix now and as previewed in Coming Soon on our Projector Room Podcast, I was looking forward to this Korean disaster movie centred around a, yes, flood. The trailer looked good and I was up for it. However, all is not as it seems and this turns out not to simply be a straight-forward disaster movie in which a meteor hits Antarctica, melts all the snow, send loads of water north, which it does, but something much more and different - and I'm afraid, confusing!

I'm sure that as I get older I get thicker (no wonder my old dad gets confused with these stories) but once again I had to turn to YouTube to get some spotty oik to tell me what the feck was going on in this film! And once I'd digested that, yes, it kinda made sense. But it's still very confusing!

The flood is about to bring the end of humanity but some stuff had happened 5+ years before which tried to ensure that if this happened, humanity could bounce back. I won't say any more as anything would be spoiler stuff I think.

The special effects I thought were very good - the water (mostly) convincing and often scary. Underwater scenes were shot well as survival instinct kicked in for our characters, who you do start to care about and provide many thrilling moments. The actors involved generally did a good job and it was quite well produced and directed. But... well... the confusing bits in the story are presented, well, confusingly... and although the smart people around me here will no doubt get it first time, I needed help, as I say. Why not give it a go and see what you think. It's just under 2 hours long.

Osiris (2025) - A Guest Mini-Review by Adrian Brain

The big draw for this recent sci-fi actioner is Linda “Terminator” Hamilton, but sadly her on-screen time is less than ten minutes. What’s worse, she didn’t “phone-in” the performance as much as send in a fax of Sarah Connor with the note “I’ll add a silly Russian accent in the overdub”.  Oh well,  I expect she has bills to pay too.

The actual lead to the film is called, I kid you not, Max Martini! The square-jawed action hero’s square-jaw. He plays the commander of a special forces unit that is abducted mid-mission into the bowels of an alien spaceship. After the usual probing by the rubbery-looking aliens, they are sealed up in jelly (complete with their arsenal of weapons, most conveniently). They are museum exhibits, presenting the best warriors Earth has to offer. However, the jelly melts and our heroes are free to try to prevent the aliens from eating the population of Earth. So a high-stakes mission then.

If you watch the trailer you’ve essentially seen the film; lots of running around alien spaceship corridors which look remarkably samey (I guess Linda Hamilton ate most of the budget) and the expected death-by-numbers. Sadly, key points, such as the final battle between uber-Alien and Earth’s squarest jaw, are fluffed badly.

However, I did enjoy this despite it being rubbish! Max Martini, often shaken but not stirred, carries the film with a certain bravado and it is always good to see Linda Hamilton with a big gun, no matter how briefly! Currently streaming on various platforms in the UK.

Die Alone (2024)

This 90-minute thriller is a kind of twist on the whole Zombie genre which has benefited from some intelligent writing, storytelling and plot development. Far from the usual often-comic approach to the walking, living dead director/writer Lowell Dean has given us something a bit smarter, more of a puzzle, which the viewer needs to unpick.

Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix, Jessica Jones, Humans) plays the lead and is, as always, convincing in her role. She is supported by Douglas Smith (The Alienist, Clarice), similarly competent as a lost soul searching for his girlfriend in amongst a new world where for humans who are not careful, Mother Nature is taking them back. All sorts of messages going on of course about what our species is doing to the planet and how we'd better watch out if we don't mend our ways.

Some of the make-up has been created interestingly for the humans who have been reclaimed, as various bits of greenery are growing out of various bits of their body, nature keeping them alive-to-thrive. Smith's character has got an extra problem to deal with, apart from avoiding being nabbed, in that he has amnesia. This pops up throughout as we're served up clues as to what the past has been for him and what he can remember about his girlfriend and where she might be.

He quickly gets trusted and invited into Carrie-Anne Moss' character's home as she sees an opportunity to have a physically healthy man around the place to help with the harder work, including taking a turn on the exercise bike which charges the batteries, assisting the solar panels, to bring her purposefully booby-trapped home some electricity. So they get along nicely until having to deal with passers-by and run the risks involved regarding who to trust and who to not. Throughout this, we're flashing back to what he (Ethan) remembers from time to time about his girlfriend and what happened to her, but he also really can't piece much of it together beyond the fact that they were in a car crash.

Carrie-Anne Moss is super in the lead and all those popping in for a quick turn do a great job including Frank Grillo (The Grey, Tulsa King, Kingdom), Kimberly-Sue Murray and Jonathan Cherry. They all contribute well to this post-apocalypse kind-of-survival story as the thrills and surprises roll. I really liked The Last of Us (2023) and this certainly had some nods to the atmosphere of that, though less of the scare moments - as much of this is more laid back - no jump-scares to contend with, which gets my vote!

It's nicely produced with some interesting photography, particularly with some of the interior sets, and yes, there is some body-horror gore here and there - but certainly nothing to hide behind the sofa from! As I said earlier, more to admire from the physical effects rather than blatant CGI. I do think that it's well worth a watch but don't read too much about it or watch give-away trailers. Go in blind and enjoy the ride. It's on a number of streaming services in the UK as I write.

Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025) - A Guest Review by Chad Dixon

This is the third in what Director James Cameron says will be five feature films set in the mid 22nd Century on the alien moon of Pandora. This outing follows on directly from the dramatic events of Avatar: The Way of Water, which was released in 2022 and again concentrates on the Na'vi family of Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) along with their three free-spirited children and adopted human son, Spider.

Still dealing with profound grief after the death of their eldest son Neteyam, their ongoing relationship with Spider (Jack Champion) is getting quite strained, especially as Neytiri feels that as he is the biological son of (hard to kill) Col. Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), he is the reason that the human forces are relentless in going after all of them and generally trying to destroy the Na'vi way of life in their greedy plans to get hold of the rare natural mineral resources on Pandora.

Against the wishes of their children, they decide to take Spider back to the friendly human scientist's base for everyone's future safety. As a compromise, the entire family hitch a ride with a balloon-travelling trader-tribe for the journey but en route, encounter a new, aggressive Na'vi tribe, the Ash People, led by their fierce female chieftain, Varang (Oona Chaplin). During the dramatic air battle, their balloon crashes in the jungle and as they try to escape on foot, Jake's metal automatic rifle falls into the hands of Verang who immediately feels it's a weapon that her and tribe must get a lot more of.

At 3 hours and 17 minutes, this film would definitely be considered on the long side but the story keeps moving at a nice pace so I certainly didn't feel bored. Empathy was flowing in all the right places as the script was much more engaging than the last film's. I'm not sure if motion capture technology used has improved since 2022 but I think that the expressiveness of the all the Na'vi faces are much more emotion-filled this time.

That point is illustrated best by Chaplin, who steals every scene that her character is in, with the most expressive performances - and with the unexpected relationship she develops with Lang, now permanently transposed into a Na'vi avatar body himself, the intensity is ramped up to eleven! His motivation involves ever more maverick attempts to try to capture the "traitor", Jake, and re-engage with his estranged son, Spider. I also have to mention the stunning topographical visuals of the multiple locations we are taken to, with all their amazing alien flora and fauna, which again are a critical part of the landscape of this franchise.

Of course, the ongoing war between the human colonists and the indigenous Na'vi is what this franchise is mostly known for and although they feel a bit relentless after, now, three films, the choreography of these particular battles have escalated to a believable level and happily, took up just about the right amount of screen time. The character development of the core family and their other Na'vi friends was what mostly I'll remember this time as it reminded me much more of the experience I felt after seeing the first film in 2009. I'll point out now that unlike that time, I didn't go to see the 3D version, which is widely available - but it was still very entertaining and much better than I was expecting!